Craving Beauty by NALINI SINGH Silhouette Desire #1667 Jul05 Voted Best of the Year

Details

Marc was dangerous to her in the way that only a strong, sexy male could be to a woman.

Even knowing that, she'd agreed to marry him. Hope blossomed in Hira's heart. Perhaps she'd married a man with whom it might just be worth building a life. Her mother had worried that he was scarred, but the lines on his face did nothing to lessen his raw masculine appeal. If anything, they gave him an even more dangerous male air, enticing the feminine core of her to thoughts that shocked her.

What did a man's face matter anyway? She had no use for handsome men.

But for a man with a heart?

For such a man she might risk everything.

EXCERPT

Marc leaned in the open doorway, his body thrumming with anticipatory tension. "Why the face? It's your wedding night, not an execution." He tried to keep his tone light but it was hard when temptation sat right in front of him.

Hira occupied the middle of a canopied Arabian bed that screamed decadence. Hung with rich velvet curtains in a warm gold and made up with sheets of silken white, it invited sin and seduction. The luxurious hangings whispered softly in the heavy heat of the desert breeze wafting in through the open balcony doors, full of murmurs of welcome.

It was as if Zulheil itself was urging him to indulge his hunger for his wife. To complete the invitation, her slender feet rested on pale pink rose petals, petals which echoed the delicate pink of her wedding garments.

She should've looked like a dream. His dream.

But instead of welcome, there was only cool distance in her eyes. The woman who'd captivated him with a single smile was subsumed under the crystal hardness of icy sophistication.

One aristocratic eyebrow rose. "What did my father promise you in the deal? Tell me and I'll deliver." That cultured voice with its exotic accent swept along his bloodstream, inciting him without intent. Her voice flared at the end, a stab of heat that was quickly smothered by the ice, leaving him uncertain that it had ever appeared.

He clenched the fists he'd shoved into the pockets of his tuxedo pants, a feeling of dread infiltrating the joy with which he'd begun this night. "You agreed to this marriage, princess." What could've been an endearment came out as a taunt, her coldness stoking his temper. "I never wanted a wife who wasn't happy to be mine."

He'd starved for this moment since he'd first seen her on the balcony of her family home in Abraz, Zulheil's biggest city. Her face had been upturned to gaze at the stars, a wistful and somehow hungry smile gracing that lovely face.

"Your father refused to let me date you," he pointed out. "You must know how old-fashioned he is. It was marriage or nothing and you were asked your choice." He'd been startled by Kerim Dazirah's decree that no man was going to be allowed near his daughter without the ties of marriage, but had made his choice in an instant.

Driven by feelings he barely understood, he'd agreed to a marriage without courtship, chanced forever on the strength of one shared smiled, one instant of pure happiness. No woman had ever made him react with such impetuousness. No woman but Hira.

Voted "Best Silhouette Desire of 2005" by
Cataromance readers!

This paperback is in very good used condition with a cover crease.

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